


The Winding Cure

by booktick



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Chapter 4: Saint Denis (Red Dead Redemption 2), Dark Past, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hosea is the Big Sad, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Old Age, Other, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Past Violence, Plot? I hardly knew Ye, Pre-Video Game: Red Dead Redemption (2010), Red Dead Redemption 2 Spoilers, References to Illness, Sad Ending, Self-Acceptance, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 12:35:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17642942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booktick/pseuds/booktick
Summary: He knew that. He was not a good man.





	The Winding Cure

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own none of this franchise.
> 
> A/N: I don't know what this is. I quickly wrote this and this is what happened. Hosea is a sad and lonely old man and I wanted to write for him.

* * *

There's plenty Hosea doesn't know. He has no idea what the new millennia could bring. only that he will not be a part of it. His role in this world was on his palms the day he pulled the trigger. He wanted to be a good man once. God did he try for so many years, even left the gang...for a while. There were too many bodies and too many lies for him to remember a time where someone looked at Old Hosea and say "There's a good man."

John is ambitious and hardheaded but he means well. John wants the gang to prosper and continue like before. The past is the past for a reason, Hosea knows. And John was...well, John's young and as foolish as he was, as Dutch was, as Arthur was and all the other ones that came before them. Youth has a habit of making one feel invincible until the world comes knocking and suddenly things aren't so bright anymore. Those times can come sooner for some, people like them, the real bad apples in the bunch. The world is easier to understand but at what cost really?

Bessie, poor girl, had known what he was and what sort of life he chose to live. And it put her in a grave because of it. Annabelle had died too. Dutch never really was the same after her. It was a wonder and by mere chance Mary got away in the end. Tilly and Karen...Mary-Beth...even Molly and Mrs. Adler. Early years stained by bloodshed and suffering. They all had no business running with people like Dutch and him.

Abigail wasn't so lucky either but maybe there was a chance for her and the rest of the girls. He hoped John would come to this conclusion faster than he had. That John could...would figure something out maybe...if the boy could get past his own demons and pride. Hosea had even told Abigail to make plans for her and little Jack, in case things went south fast. Hell, even Arthur had agreed that Abigail needed to think of herself and Jack first. 

And just look at young Jack, just a small child, living with a band of outlaws on the run. There wasn't a real future here for Jack, not in a life of crime and murder. Hosea wants only good for him. Hosea hopes the boy will find whatever he looks for in life and forgets all of them. Let the van der linde gang rot in the ground like it needs to for the world to keep moving forward. Their time was coming to a mighty conclusion and soon. Hosea could feel it in the air as each day passed.

This gang...this way of theirs...they were not the future. It wasn't like they'd all given up, wouldn't have gotten this far if they had. A bunch of them, the younger and older of them, had wanted to keep trying, to reach out for something no one offered to them before. Too many times had Hosea seen their hands get bit clean off simply for trying. Dutch could make all his speeches and grand gestures but he knew. They all had to know deep down, on some level. Even lenny Summers and Mary-Beth.

All of this was only gonna end one way the more they tried to keep at it. That didnt mean any of it was fair. For hosea matthews though...he figured it might be justice for him and Dutch, as much as he loved the man and the man loved him. They'd done enough to warrant this. Too much death had been on their hands, it never could be washed away no matter how hard they tried or how hard they wanted it to. The world deserved better than them.

Sometimes he dreamt of something more for himself and when he woke, he remembered and he understood. If they kept trying to fit the past into this new world that was forming...they'd all loose their way, even the young ones, and there wouldn't be a way back on the road. Some of them had never been on the road to begin with. Sooner or later there wouldn't be any road left and they'd be wiped out before the Pinkertons could even reach them. 

Personally, if Hosea could choose, he'd like to die knowing how rather than not. It was the not knowing that bothered him, not the act itself. His own death was accepted the moment he lost Bessie. It was deserved with all the other deaths he created without thought and with it. Not all deaths are accidental after a while after all. What happened at the Braithwaites...he'd happily fired his gun just too them stain their walls and watch as they begged for an end. And he knew he'd do it again if he had to.

He knew that. He was not a good man. Hosea could taste the rust on his tongue as he wiped his mouth with a stained tissue, cleaning what he could before shoving it back into his pocket. He coughed harder against arm and swallowed the blood this time.

He had told them all around the campfire, five years more he had, even with the medicine. Like most things for Hosea, that wasn't going to happen. Dutch was the talker, the speaker of the gang, but Hosea was good with words too. Lies came easy to him, easier than most things. Let him keep up as long as he could then he could rest. Just a little more. He figured he owed the gang at least that. He'd help where he could and move when he could.

His bones resisted him the entire way and he doesn't remember how his daddy made it to an old age. His ribs burn and ache with each breath he steals from this world. Hosea Matthews was, as he had always seemed to find himself as, a liar and a thief. 

He was so lost in his thoughts he doesn't realize it's already past lunch until he feels a hand at his shoulder. Hosea looked up as he hears Lenny, "Are you busy, sir? Can I sit with you for a moment?", so he sits up straighter and gestures for him to sit for a while, to talk. Lenny would have to find his own path as the year ended and Hosea wanted to believe it'd be a good one, same as for Jack and all the other young ones here. Some still had a chance...but only if they left.

For now, Hosea would do what what was needed and be there for his family. Even if death was walking behind them, a careful and patient shadow. Still, it was their shadow and would continue to be so with each step they all took towards the wrong way. Hosea pats Lenny's hands and smiles some for the boy. A gesture of the all the kindness that he has left in him and only for this gang. Yet, as Micah Bell walked on by and Hosea that familar look in the man's eye, he hoped, just for a few breaths, that the shadow behind the van der Linde gang walked a bit faster.


End file.
